


Catching Up

by quantumoddity



Series: Jupeter Dads AU [4]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Family Fluff, Just some soft really, Other, and the desire to write Juno and Nureyev as old dads, over some rangian street poker, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:53:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25190434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: It's my wonderful friend's birthday so I wrote her a fic! And I'm posting just in case anyone read my fic 'I will love you if I never see you again' and wanted more dad Jupeter and more of their daughter!Bianca has an announcement for her dads and there's only one way Nureyevs can communicate
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Jupeter Dads AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824808
Comments: 10
Kudos: 147





	Catching Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MinkyForShort](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinkyForShort/gifts).



There were many reasons they weren’t a conventional family. 

There was their clunky surname that was hard to wrap your mouth around. Steel-Nureyev. Or maybe Nureyev-Steel, they’d never formally decided which way it went. Mostly because they never really had to use it and had never needed to write it down in any official capacity. 

There was the fact that a female sewer rabbit lived in their modest Hyperion apartment, turning it into a tiny apartment and the rabbit into, technically, a house rabbit. It was fine, they rarely had guests over that weren’t Rita, Jet or the Aurinkos. Or Mick but he was terrified of Small Fry, as Juno insisted on still calling her. 

There was the fact that, for months long stretches at a time, Juno and Nureyev would have no idea where their eldest daughter was. They would hear nothing from her or her wife, Desta, not so much as a message over their comms. Nothing but Juno’s anxious, obsessive tuning in to the police scanners of all the major planets and some from the outer rim to boot. Rita had hacked his comms so he’d be able to pick it up and Nureyev pretended he didn’t know how much he clung to it and that he wasn’t equally as worried, all the time, gnawing away deep down inside himself. 

But there was also the fact that when, finally, they’d hear her boots in the hallway or see the coat that used to be Juno’s hanging on the coat rack by the door and hear her singing from her old bedroom, when their Bee Bee finally came home, the cards would always come out. 

Juno tried to be a good host, tried to catch their attention to offer drinks but they were already focused. They sat across the dining room table from each other, like they always did, with the same matching smiles and narrowed eyes and playful determination. Nureyev laid the cards out himself, as he always did, so many that they took up a whole table in an array that still didn’t make a lick of sense to Juno, much to his irritation. 

“Have they always done this?” Desta asked, her voice soft and quiet as always. Her lips were a bright blue today and she was smiling more than usual, “This game?”

Her eyes were on Bianca, with the same exasperated tenderness Juno was sure she’d see in his own eye, fixed on Nureyev.

“It used to be chess,” Juno hummed as he poured wine, “He taught her to play when she was six, they practised every night until she could beat him. Then he would cheat and she had to still win and tell him after how he cheated. Then they both cheated. And then they moved onto this. Same system, just with a game a million times more complicated.” 

Desta looked at the splayed out cards, at the rapid fire way Nureyev dealt and shrugged, accepting the wine Juno held out to her and sipping mildly. Juno wished he could have the same blase attitude to not having a clue how Rangian street poker worked. 

“Can’t you guys catch up normally?” he sighed, bringing Nureyev the glass of red wine he didn’t need to ask to know he wanted, “Like with a conversation? I’ve heard some families have those.”

“This is way more fun,” Bianca waved away her own glass and squeezed her mama’s hand instead, “Cos I get to catch up and beat my daddy at something.”

Nureyev’s eyebrow arched, “Confidence. An interesting play, given how our last game went.”

Bee Bee hummed, tilting her head so her earrings rang. Desta had clearly made them, they were exquisitely wrought discs of ceramic and bronze, painted with tiny flowers. She’d been doing a lot of pottery work lately, straying away from her usual canvasses. 

“Funny, daddy, I don’t recall how our last game went. I prefer to focus on the game in front of me. First rule of thieving, right?”

Nureyev’s smile curled up at one end and he was clearly suppressing a chuckle, “Let’s start then. You can have the first question.” 

Bianca tilted her head in thought, “Hmm...have you read Sephy’s manuscript?”

Nureyev’s eyes widened, “What? Have  _ you _ ? He’s not been letting anyone read it until his editor gets back to him, not even Idun!”

Her eyebrow lifted and her grin became truly smug, “Is that your question, daddy?”

He bristled the way a cornered cat would, “No. I want to know what planet you were just on.”

“Works for me. Let’s play!”

If Juno had thought Nureyev was fast back at the Oasis, now he thought he must grow four extra arms to keep up. He and Bianca were a flurry of effortlessly manicured, pale, spidery hands and laser burned, clever fingered, dark brown hands, all working to outwit the other set in ways that there was no hope of following. Juno gave up quickly, motioning Desta over to the sofa to the side of the table, making polite small talk about her latest gallery opening on Jupiter where the art scene had gone wild at the idea of an anonymous artist with such magnificent, bold pieces. He didn’t know a damn thing about art, especially good art, but the way the kid’s eyes lit up when she talked about her work was good enough for him. 

They broke off when the hand ended, Bianca grinning in triumph and Nureyev scowling and gritting his teeth. 

“No,” he said, short and clipped, “My own son, my flesh and blood, whom I gave life to will not let me read his manuscript.” 

Bianca’s smile softened a little, “He just cares about your opinion. He doesn’t want you to read it until it’s absolutely perfect and even then he’s probably going to still worry you don’t like it.”

Nureyev gave a non committal grunt but it was clear she’d mollified him. Juno would have piped up and told him that he hadn’t been allowed to read it either but Nureyev already knew that. And he knew it didn’t stop either of them being so damn proud of their son, selling his first novel to a publisher at just twenty years old, after a childhood of watching him typing away on his comms, writing his little stories.

“Your turn, daddy,” Bianca smiled sweetly, shamelessly using every weapon she’d had since she was born to wrap the galaxy’s greatest thief around her little finger. 

He drew in a breath and set his shoulders. Juno had seen him square up for fights before, he knew that look behind his cat eye glasses. Clearly Bianca had caught him on the back foot, bringing a new level to the game that he hadn’t known she could. But he was drawing himself tight as a bow, his knuckles threatening to burst out of his skin, his teeth showing under his lip. 

Once again, Juno wished that they could catch up with their children over dinner maybe, cups of tea and biscuits even, like normal people. 

“What planet were you just on?” Nureyev asked again, still stuck on his first question. 

Bianca smiles broadly, dark gold eyes wandering around the room, “Did you and mama redecorate?” 

“Play,” Nureyev looks insulted by her question, setting to the cards. 

Juno just watched this time, he’d learned that a comfortable silence was best with Desta sometimes. He saw a lot of his younger self in the girl his daughter had brought back from one of her first big jobs. That didn’t bode well at all for the poor kid so he was always careful to give her space and just be a quiet presence beside her. It seemed to be working, she shifted closer to him after a minute of nothing but cards hitting the table, sounding like bird wings, and actually rested her head on his shoulder. 

Juno smiled and let his eye wander over the table, not trying to make sense of the erratic movements and patterns that seemed to rise and fall apart within seconds, but just watching his husband and their daughter be brilliant at something. He had fun finding the eerie similarities in their expressions and their mannerisms, how she looked so much like him but acted so much like Nureyev. 

He was so deep in his own thoughts that the only reason he didn’t miss the reveal was Nureyev’s startled noise of dismay. 

“What?” he looked down at their cards like he was looking at a cat with two heads doing a tap dance across the table, “But...but I…”

Bianca tilted her head, humming innocently, “Something wrong, daddy?”

“How did you do that?” he demanded, stunned, “I’ve never used that method with you and I invented it myself, how could you know about it? How could you counter it so fast?”

“This is all very nice but all I care about is if that wallpaper is new,” she actually pretend to stifle a yawn. Juno had to swallow a laugh very quickly or he’d have been sleeping on the couch. 

Nureyev trembled, “Yes. Yes, it’s new, we redecorated after your mother’s pet chewed through the plaster.”

“Hey, her new teeth were coming though, okay?” Juno piped up indignantly, “They were hurting.”

Bad move, all of Nureyev’s frustrations flowed at him like a blistering wind via the glare he gave him. Maybe he should start fluffing the couch cushions now. Desta giggled beside him.

“You have something, don’t you?” Nureyev swiveled back to his eldest with realisation chasing away the clouds annoyance, “Something big. That’s why you’re playing like this.”

Bianca gave no reaction but a pretty smile, “All you have to do is ask, daddy. Well, ask and win, I guess.”

“Was I born yesterday, treasure?” Nureyev sniffed, “I know how this game is played. I will ask but only when I am in the correct position, perfectly poised to strike.”

“Cool, daddy,” Bianca seemed more interested in her nails, her posture looking like she was having a lazy brunch with a friend. 

Desta murmured softly, close to Juno’s ear, “They do...love each other, right?”

“Hard to tell sometimes, isn’t it?” Juno whispered back after a rough chuckle, “But yeah, they’re devoted to each other. They’re just like this.”

They continued to be ‘like this’ for another half hour, playing round after round, questions fired like shots by Nureyev and tossed out lazily by Bianca. 

“Did you pull that job over in Olympus with the melting bank notes and not come visit us?”

“So how’s your yoga class? Does Bitch Jan still go?”

“Why do you call your mother when he’s at work when you know I won’t be there?”

“That necklace is cute, is it new?”

“How the  _ hell  _ did you win that last goddamn round?”

“I saw you having dinner at that place on Third Street on Auntie Rita’s feed, is it any good? I was thinking of taking Desta.”

“What exactly did I do to deserve such a terrible child?  _ No that is not my question, shut up Juno!” _

The rounds went on and Nureyev’s blood pressure steadily climbed. He lost again and again to Bianca, with her barely breaking a sweat, having to give up the mundanities of their empty nester life, his attempts at baking and their redecorating and the silly streams they liked to watch. 

Juno had never seen this happen before. He’d never say it out loud but Bee Bee had always been the better player, when you looked at it all together, but there had never been a game where Nureyev hadn’t taken more than a few rounds from her and it had never been so easy. 

Juno narrowed his eye and studied his daughter, now with her feet up on the table and rocking her chair back on two legs, clearly enjoying this. But equally as clearly up to something. Nureyev had it dead to rights, there was something she held, something that had to be big with all the effort she was putting in to make him unwrap it. 

Before he could help it, Juno was adding it up. And, in less than a moment, in less time than it took for Bianca to tear her winning hand into shreds and playfully blow them in Nureyev’s direction, he had it.

“Holy shit!” he yelped, slapping a hand over his mouth a second too late. 

Bianca shot him a sparkling grin and a look in her eyes like she knew he’d get it eventually. She put her finger to her red painted lips. 

“What?” Nureyev looked like he didn’t know whether to flip the table or cry now, eyes darting between the two of them, “Oh come on! Now  _ he  _ knows?”

“He is a detective,” Bee Bee pointed out, “And you are supposed to be good at this game, daddy. You are getting old, huh?”

Nureyev grit his teeth, finger trembling in the air, a million cutting responses crowding on his tongue. But then he dropped his hand to the table and inhaled sharply, letting it come out again in a long, low hiss. 

“You know what? Let’s do this. My question...what are you keeping from me, Bianca Nureyev?”

Bee Bee only smiled, almost in acceptance, and pondered a moment, “Um...did you like that podcast I sent you?” 

The creases on Nureyev’s brow deepend, “But...but you know that? I told you that?  _ Weeks  _ ago?”

Bee Bee looked untroubled, “Pass or play, daddy?”

“Play,” Nureyev eventually said, after a long moment of him clearly wracking his brain for what new machination their daughter had just put into motion, deciding to let it run. 

The difference was palpable, even from where Desta and Juno sat. Before she’d been snake-like in how quick and deadly her movements were, now she was deferential, walking right into his snares without a care, doing something no self respecting Nureyev or Steel had ever done. She was playing fair. All while smiling like she’d already won. 

It was a quick slaughter. No one was surprised when they turned their cards over and Nureyev held the winning hand. No one but Nureyev himself. 

“I...I don’t understand…” he muttered to himself, as his hands moved automatically to tear his cards, “How did you...after everything…” 

“Would you like your answer?” Bianca swung her legs down, leaning close, now intent and eager. 

Nureyev almost looked terrified, like he was waiting for a trap to spring around his neck but he couldn’t see how yet, “Yes...yes, fine. What’s this big secret?”

Bianca beamed, like she’d been waiting for this since she walked through the door, “You’re going to be a grandpa.”

Nureyev didn’t seem to register it at first, his face still set in puzzlement. Then his eyes went very, very wide and he sat bolt upright, jaw practically hitting his chest. 

Bianca laughed, already standing to go and hug him as tight as she could, only just managing to get out her apologies, her assurances that it was just too hard to resist teasing him, through her giggles. If the way Nureyev clasped her close and buried his face in her cloud of hair, already crying, she was forgiven. 

Juno gave himself a moment before he jumped up and pounced on them, a moment to watch them and just how much they loved each other. 

A moment to think how, right now, he was so glad they weren’t a conventional family. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you liked this!


End file.
